Death penalty foes say Muhammad execution not justified

Sniper's death prompted cheers from those who lived through rampage

Death penalty opponents said the execution of John Allen Muhammad may have been cheered by parts of the community, but still does not justify executions.

"I'm not at all sure what it accomplishes," said Jane Henderson of Maryland Citizens Against State Executions.

Henderson said she recalled well the fear that the community lived through in October 2002 when Muhammad and then-teenage accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo killed 10 people and wounded three others in the Washington region.

"It was a really dark period," she said. "It was a hard period to live through."

But the resources spent by state governments in carrying out executions would be better spent in opening cold case files to bring unsolved murders to justice, Henderson said.

Supporters of the death penalty arrived early outside the prison Nov. 10 despite a steady rain.

"One girl said the other day, I normally question the death penalty, but I do support it in this case.' That's how I feel," said Pamela Clark, 39, of Emporia, Va., who organized a group of neighbors on the social networking Web site Facebook to attend to show support for the victims and their families.

Mary Ellen Russell, executive director of Maryland Catholic Conference, said the church believes the state has other options than capital punishment.

"The state has the ability to protect its citizenry through life without parole," Russell said. "We do not believe in taking a life as a means of punishment."

While there was sympathy for the families of the victims, it still did not justify executing Muhammad, she said.

"The opposition of this form of punishment remains the same because we believe in the dignity of every human being, and as a society we look to engaging in a justice that recognizes that dignity, regardless of the level of the crime committed," Russell said.

The Beltway sniper, who had chosen his victims at random, once had grandiose plans of receiving millions from the federal government to stop the killings and intended to use the funds to build a camp for boys to train them in killing, just as he had with Malvo. Malvo testified against Muhammad during a 2006 trial in Montgomery County.

Malvo provided chilling details on how Muhammad had pulled the trigger in nine of the 10 murders. Six of the victims were shot and killed in Montgomery County.

You took me in your house and made me a monster," Malvo told Muhammad during cross examination when Muhammad represented himself at the Montgomery County trial.

Virginia gave Muhammad the death penalty after his 2003 trial for the slaying of Dean H. Meyers of Gaithersburg on Oct. 9, 2002. Meyers, the seventh victim of the snipers, was felled with a single bullet after filling his car with gas at a Sunoco station near Manassas, Va., on his way home from work.

Malvo, who was 17 at the time of the shootings, is serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.